Stuxnet: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

April 18, 2018

Remember that time when the Iranian nuclear program was flummoxed by the speeding up or slowing down of their centrifuges? Though the actors have never been formally identified, the special sauce to that enterprise was Stuxnet, and the secret ingredient of that sauce was counterfeit cryptographic certificates from known companies that greased the skids for the malware. Ars Technica is reporting that the secret ingredients are now commonly available for all of your over-the-counter malware needs, if you know who to call.

Just to be clear, the fake certificates tend to be invalidated fairly quickly, but the fact that a secondary market exists suggests that the scam is successful at least some of the time, especially with Trojans and ransomware. While this probably doesn’t surprise you, since the InterWebs offer markets in just about everything, it should give you pause, since the seemingly legitimate certificate makes it even more difficult to identify malware as it streams through your network.

There’s A Price For That

As with all markets, the price is negotiated by buyers and sellers, and affected by supply and demand. Cybercrime is ever present. The supply of tools like counterfeit certificates will rise to meet demand. The growing nature of our digital footprints, and the reality that most of our lives are rendered in ones and zeros, suggests that demand for access to that sensitive data isn’t likely to wane in the near term. So there’s a price for that access.

Here’s the question. What’s the value of your data? And further, what’s the value of the integrity of your network? Because there’s a price for that as well, and it’s likely to be very reasonable when compared to picking up the pieces.

Call ICS today, and let’s do some math. And then let’s secure your world.